With the statement, the
papers were thrown onto the coffee table and the girl crossed her arms,
waiting for a response. Her mother remained still on the couch, her
eyes not even moving to the papers. Instead, the woman's pair of dark
sapphire eyes were locked on her daughter with an expression of
irritation and pure disbelief.

"No."

"But why?"

"Becky,
I'm not going to have this fight with you again," she said, reaching
over to grab a cigarette. She paused while she lit up, then spoke again
with her hand bouncing with each word. "I want you to settle down. Have
some kids. You're already finished college, what more could you want?"

There was a brief silence, Rebecca staring at her mother in disbelief. "Well, maybe a career? I didn't obtain my Masters in Cognitive Psychology for nothing!"(a/n1)

"You're still young. Get married, then get a job. Lord knows that women with careers scare the crap out of men--"

"No, they scare the crap out of Ishida Narita,"
she pointed out, emitting the name like it was a virus. Quickly
afterward, she turned around and refused to look at her mother, the
very name of Ishida placing her in an even worse mood. She could
imagine her mother's expression -angered, as always, because of her
rejection of men that she thought were worthy.

"Bec--"

"Rebecca."

"Fine. Rebecca," her mother placed a finely French manicured hand on
her shoulder and in return, she flinched. "I'll allow you this one trip
on one condition."

Rebecca tensed. "What?"

"You agree to marry Ishida when you come back."

---

"Europe?"

"Yeah, it'll be great! The foreign chicks, fresh air, awesome cars,
more foreign chicks--" the speaker paused mid-ramble to observe the
not-too-impressed look on his older brother's face. "C'mon, Seto! I'm
gonna go whether you like it or not."

"Have you forgotten your
position in Kaiba Corporation?" the CEO asked while going through a
pile of papers with one hand and typing with the other.

"Serenity will take care of that!" the younger Kaiba dismissed with a
wave of his hand. Kaiba's expression failed to lighten -in fact, it had
hardened if anything.

"Serenity is in no condition to cover in your position," Kaiba informed, leaning forward in his desk. "You're not going."

"Can I go if she says yes?"

"No."

Deciding that it was pointless to argue with his stone-cold brother
(who was most likely saying 'no' to him in preparation to refuse his
own children's future demands), he left the room without another word.
There was the bizarre hope that ignoring everyone in the household
would gain him his desire. He certainly wasn't used to be refused and
wasn't sure exactly how to handle it.

While lumbering down the stairs, he whipped out his cell-phone and dialed one of his friends.

"Takeshi!" he exclaimed when the hung over man answered his phone. "You sober?"

"I dunno...What day is it today?"

"That doesn't matter! Listen, I need you to help me. My brother refuses to lend me the money to--"

"Money to what?"

There was only one female voice in the Kaiba Mansion that would be
allowed to speak with such an authoritative and slightly intimidating
tone. Serenity Kaiba stood behind Mokuba in all her motherly glory, one
child strapped to her back and the other to her front in those baby
knapsacks that Kaiba despised. Sometimes Mokuba wondered whether her
bones would break from exertion -her mind was almost gone as it was and
she was certainly taking Kaiba down with her in the fall.

"Uhh... pay for college?" he answered tentatively, phone held in
midair. Reluctantly, he hung it up and waited for his sister-in-law to
lash out at him as she had recently taken a liking for it.

"You received a scholarship to cover six years' tuition."

He knew she wanted to fold her arms but was prevented by one of her
gurgling creatures. He also knew she wanted to give him a piercing look
but considering how her eyelids kept drooping, that wouldn't be
happening any time soon.

"Serenity, are you okay?" he asked sincerely. His dark brows furrowed in concern regarding his wobbling sister-in-law.

"Of course! Of course! Of..."

"GAH!"

Catching a 120 pound woman with her twin children strapped to her was
not an easy feat and within one minute, Mokuba found himself screaming
for help. Quickly, two maids came rushing from either direction and
after un-strapping the children, Mokuba was left to the task of taking
Serenity to bed where she promptly passed out.

"I'm in a house full of psychos..." he muttered while leaving the room.

In her desperation to prevent her children from being raised by maids
and nannies, Serenity took it upon herself to spend every waking minute
of the day with her one-year-old twins. Not only did it harm her own
sanity and health, she was beginning to take less of Mokuba's side and
act more diplomatic with him. Not once since the twins were born did
she let him drive off with one of Seto's cars or host a party at any of
their lodges.

He felt like his life was robbed from him and
thirsted for escape to somewhere far where people partied all night and
slept all day. He had planned on Las Vegas, but then again, he hadn't
been to Europe in a while and would be less likely to run into anyone
associated with Kaiba Corporation. Not to mention that he found accents
to be quite a turn-on.

Oh dear, this top is so bloody hot... Would you be a dear and help me out of it, love?

He grinned with anticipation.

It wouldn't take much to convince his brother to let him go. He just
needed to work out a schedule -or simply bribe some pretty young thing
into doing his tasks for him... Someone who was smart, subservient, and
desperate for money... Then he would simply slip out, let his work be
done for him, and no one would ever notice that he was gone...Of
course, there was that financial problem, but a bit of hawking never
hurt anyone. Kaiba wouldn't notice if half the things in the mansion
where missing -he hadn't even seen a third of it.

Hyped-up by his master plan, Mokuba bounced to his room to pack.

---

The next morning, Rebecca awoke to the sun shining through her window,
birds chirping blithely, and the lovely prospect of having to marry
Ishida if she went on a simple trip to Europe. She groaned, slamming
her head against her drawn knees. It certainly wasn't supposed to be
like this.

She wanted to go with her friends to Europe so badly
that it almost caused her to scream. It wasn't easy obtaining friends
her own age, not only because she was already in college by the age of
ten, but because of her constantly leaving the country for dueling
tournaments. It was through a stroke of luck that she met her current
group of friends when she was fifteen. Now, they were going on a trip
to Europe to celebrate their High School graduation (University for
her) and she was being stopped by her horrible, wretched mother! She
knew that if her grandfather were still alive, she wouldn't be caught
like a mouse in a trap.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she
began to take deep calming breaths. Once she regained her composure,
she lifted her pillow up and seized her diary. Flipping through the
pages, she sighed wistfully. Dreams. Every page was scrawled blue with
dreams. Snapping the book shut, she nodded to herself. Even if she had
to marry Ishida, she still had her dreams. Dreams about becoming a
successful psychologist. Dreams about writing a textbook. Dreams that
Ishida would become run-over by a truck...

The pleasing image of the man running for his life from a Chevy was broken by the peppy beat of her cell-phone.

"Rebecca, where are you?" one of her friends questioned when she picked up. It was hard to hear her through the loud crowd in the background.

"At home," she numbly answered, slightly irked that there was no greeting from the other end. Was it so hard to say, 'Hi'?

"What?"

"At HOME!"

"No, I mean, 'what' as in 'what the hell?'!"

Rebecca
sighed, hating having to explain herself to her friends. "If I agree to
come with you guys, Mom says I have to marry Ishida."

Her friend made a disgusted sound. "She's still on about that?"

"He is the son of her best friend..."

There was a pause on the other end. Then, "Come anyway."

"Did you not hear what I just said?"

"You're eighteen!"

"So?"

"So...?"

Closing her eyes, Rebecca gave the proposition less than a moment's thought before answering, "I'll be there in half-an-hour."

---

"Where did you go wrong?" Serenity asked her husband, a blank look on
both of their faces. The pair sat on Mokuba's bed, exhausted after
struggling to look for him and discovering that he had actually gone to
Europe.

Kaiba sent his wife a glare, which she dismissed, and promptly stood up. "Me? Me?"

"Well, of course you. After all, I met your brother when he was still in High School."

"He was still obedient! This is your
influence. You spoil him too much!" Clenching his fist tightly, he
raised his arm and slammed it against Mokuba's desk. "That boy is not
getting away with this!"

"What's the harm in letting him go for
an innocent trip?" Serenity asked, walking up behind Kaiba and softly
leaning against his back. "He is twenty, after all..."

"That doesn't matter! That kid is a kidnapper magnet!" Kaiba snapped.

Serenity gave a mock gasp. "Of course! Anyone could just walk up, grab
him and stuff all 160 pounds of him into a duffel bag!" She began to
laugh hysterically and Kaiba shrugged her off. He then left the room,
muttering to himself. This day certainly was not good. For one thing,
his little brother was missing (well, not exactly, but the path to
Europe was a long and convoluted one) and for another, his wife had
gone off the deep end.

He could still hear her laughing.
Suddenly there was a thump. Rushing back to the room in a panic, he was
annoyed to see her lying on the floor in the fetal position with her
face red and laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Go figure, she
had fallen off the bed.

Note to Self: Serenity needs sleeping pills...

---

"Shit, I am so late!" Running
like a man escaping from an enraged wife wielding a rolling pin, Mokuba
sped down the hall of the train station and onto the platform. He could
see his friends poking their heads out of the windows and either
yelling, waving or doing a mixture of both in an attempt to get him to
hasten his pace. Not like he wasn't going breakneck already...

Right when the whistle blew, he jumped onto the train and threw his
knapsack into the corner. He was ready to enter the carriage when he
noticed someone crying out for the train to stop. Leaning out while
holding onto the railing, his eyes were blessed with the sight of a
very lovely young woman running awkwardly after the train, which was
beginning to pull out. From her speed and desperation, her cheeks were
red, chest heaving (to his enjoyment) and her golden hair spread out
behind her like the flare from the sun.

Holding out his hand,
Mokuba said no words, knowing that she would make it. He wasn't sure
why -call it gut instinct, or whatever other words men would use to
define 'intuition'. In a few moments, his instinct prevailed when her
soft hand fell into his. Pulling her onto the train, he watched as the
platform disappeared behind them.

"Ah, you're still holding onto
me" she said, breathless. Mokuba broke his eyes from the scenery of
nature to observe the beautiful girl in his arms. Well, technically
struggling to get out of his arms. He released her
apprehensively and furrowed his dark brows when she dusted off her
blouse and attempted to tidy up her hair. Then, completely ignoring
him, she went for her suitcase, which had spilled open upon contact
with the floor.

"Huhn..." Chewing on the innards of his cheek,
Mokuba pretended not to act offended by her superiority attitude and
began to attempt to open the door to the actual seating area. Currently
they were sitting in the room people tread within to get off from the
train and it wasn't particularly comfortable.

"Open up..." he
groaned to himself, tugging with all of his might. The door didn't
budge. Then he changed to a mix between singing and grunting. "Op-en
the door, darling..."

The girl cast him a dirty look, which he
unfortunately managed to catch, and he stopped tugging. "It's stuck,"
he explained and she made a very round 'o' with her perfect pink lips
while nodding as if attending to a child. Mokuba rolled his eyes and
trudged to the corner to sit down. He was in the process of making
himself comfortable when he felt something poke him in the rear end.
Confused, he reached back and pulled out a very white, very lacy and
large bra. Dangling it by the strap, he scooted over to the girl, who
was still arranging her items in the suitcase, and poked her on the
shoulder.

"Yes?" she snapped, her voice having the potential to seem like an angel's but right now, seeming very much like a demon's.

"Is this your--" The bra was snatched from him before he was able to
finish the sentence. He gave her an awkward smile and she glared in
response.

"So, going to Debrecen?"(a/n2) he asked. When she
didn't answer, he continued to talk in a jovial tone, completely
unaffected. "A few hours ago I got off from a plane in Budapest coming
from Russia. Before that I had come from Japan. Long trip... slept a
lot, though. Really needed to catch up on that...Yeah, it was awesome.
I had this dream where I had become a female stripper and... hey, what
are you reading?"

At this point, he had gradually crawled closer
and closer to her until he was positioned quite artistically with his
head leaning back below her book and forehead aptly against her chest.

"Do you normally read books upside down?" he asked when realizing he
could read it perfectly while he was far from right-side up.

"Would you please do me the favor of--"

Her
irate complaint was cut short, though, by the expression on Mokuba's
face. He blinked once, his mouth slightly parted, before he released a
small laugh. "I remember you!"

"W-what?" For reasons unknown to her, the girl blushed.

"You're--"

Mokuba was prevented from finishing his sentence when the door to the
carriage opened. In jubilation, he jumped up, grabbed his knapsack,
accidentally smacked the girl in the back of the head with it and
skipped inside.

"Jerk!" she cried out when he was out of sight.
Huffing, she gathered her own belongings and entered the carriage to
find her friends.

---

(a/n1: Yes, although Rebecca will be 18 in this fic, she does have a masters degree in Psychology. Why? Well, let's see... when she was 10 she was already in college so... you do the math.)

(a/n2: A city in Hungary.)

a/n3:
Okay, time for my friggin rambles. Uhm, I'm just going to see whether I
should continue this fic, just because I know the fandom for
MokubaxRebecca isn't too big and I'm not sure whether anyone cares
about their little love story (if anyone does support them, I suggest
you join Setine's forthcoming fanlisting for them). But hey, there's
always the insanity of KaibaxSerenity to amuse you if you hate the
pairing! (oh yes, I've made them quite insane together... I don't think
they're OOC, more or less just used to being married with twins. Think
'Red and Kitty' from That 70's Show). If you want emails when it's updated, tell me! Until next time (maybe)! Oi, my neck hurts.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.